I recently read an article by an online social company who spoke with thousands of businesses and marketers over the past few years. In searching for "What is modern marketing"... I'd like to share a few takeaways from the article.

​"The modern marketer has to be familiar with a lot of skills, good at many, and master of a few."

7 Invaluable Marketing Skills

Storytelling - effectively understanding and sharing emotions in order to communicate in an engaging and authentic way.

Prioritizing - choosing goals, assigning, and following through

Collaborating - at the core of any great team is trust.

Visualizing - create stunning designs that tell compelling stories

Experimenting - measure and analyze

Analyzing - why things have happened and what might happen in the future based on the past

Learning - always be curious, inquisitive, and moving forward

“Content is King but engagement is Queen, and the lady rules the house!” - Mari Smith

The first week in August is National Simplify Your Life Week, a week to get organized and de-clutter for a more stress-free lifestyle. Negative clutter can invade every area of your life—not just your closets. Relationships, finances, kids, jobs, health and spiritual well-being are all adversely impacted by the unnecessary and harmful stuff we accumulate and hold onto. With crazy schedules and growing responsibilities, we are all looking for ways to simplify our lives.

Here are six top tips to 'simplify your life':

Limit paper, mail, emails, faxes, ect. Get on the do not call list to limit the incoming phone calls. Get your bills and financial statements online. Unsubscribe to email lists that you no longer follow.

Manage your papers. Your filing system should have current items only. Go through your mail everyday. Create action items to handle hold things such as bills, and "to do" items.

Plan the night before. Before you go to bed each night, prepare things for the morning. Set out your clothes for the next day and load up your work bag.

So many people are talking about Facebook Marketing... giving advice about how to get more "likes", how to get "cheap clicks" and how to make a bazillion dollars using Facebook. It's easy they assure us! So long as we hand over $97 to them. Forget about that. Read the principles to success here:

The 3 basic but important things you need to remember are:

Target

Offer

Message

That's it, and that is the order of priorities. (Yes that is the order!)

1. Target When you create your Facebook ads, make sure you are targeting the right people - your ideal clients, the people who are more inclined to buy your product or service.

2. Offer Create an Offer that your target market would find irresistible. How do you do that? By understanding your target market's problems and desires and creating an offer that will overcome their problem and achieve their desire.

Action Step: What does your target market want to avoid and what do they want to achieve? Create an offer that addresses both.

3. MessageWhy is Message only #3 - Message is all about the text, what you say and how you say it. Surely your message would be more important? Well, let's look at it: Imagine you ran a shoe shop and had a 2-for-1 deal on the best most expensive running shoes on the market but you were not eloquent and your grammar was awful, because you have the right target and an irresistible, relevant offer you will still generate sales.

Talk your target market's language and talk about them, not about you.

Take the "Me, Myself, and I" test. Don't know what I am talking about? Count how many times you talk about "I", "We", "Us", "Our company" and add up how many times you talk about your prospect and their challenges and desires and compare the difference. Are you talking about yourself more than you are to your target market?

Action Step: What words and phrases does your target market use to explain their situation, problems and desires? Use those words and phrases to explain your offer. Talk about your prospect more than you talk about yourself.

So next time you are creating advertising, whether it be on Facebook or anywhere for that matter, remember the 3 elements of a successful advertisement, and remember this order of priority.

Sell, sell, sell. The rule is quite simple. Marketing strategies are all about selling a service or product. No matter how brilliant a marketing campaign is, it is still a failure if it does not sell anything. The creative brilliance of the campaign should not overpower the message of sales. If you remember the advertisement, but not the service or product, then the strategy did not work.

Stick to proven marketing principles. There are proven marketing principles and they encompass all the mediums that we have today, even social media. Before online platforms were created we had to market using traditional means. With time, the advertising mediums change, but we need to follow the same principles.

It’s all in the planning. Without an appropriate plan, money will be wasted and the marketing strategy might not work at all. Tactics must be outlined in detail even if the business is very small scale. A scattered approach is not going to work for the business at all.

Is the product strong enough to sell? Essentially, the product has to be strong enough to be the focus of a marketing campaign. It does not matter if the marketing team is the best in the world if the service or product is not excellent.

Get hold of the data. Companies who have access to industrial databases are at an advantage. They have the edge over the competition, especially those who use the data to gain relevant insights.

Know how to listen. Many believe that listening is the number one marketing skill. It is not surprising that the most effective listeners execute the most effective marketing campaigns. Listening is a skill that comes with empathy and is fueled by curiosity.

Show people how they’ll benefit from the product. Since people are concerned mostly in what interests them, it will be smart to focus on letting them know how a service or product will be beneficial to them.

Relevance is the key. A smart marketing strategy is one that grabs hold of people’s attention at a split second. People must find the message relevant to their lives. If they do not then the message will be lost.

Target human emotion. Making a product sell is all about engaging people to feel for the product being offered to them. This is the foundation for establishing loyal customers. This also fully defines the brand. Your brand has to elicit an emotional reaction.

Identities evolve. Although brand logos and online identities can become the image of the brand for a certain period of time, things eventually change. This is the nature of branding. Trends are always changing and makeovers define modern-day advertising. It helps to keep a fresh approach.

Don't risk negative information appearing in Google searches for you or your brand. These tools have you covered. Managing your personal brand and online reputation is not an easy task, but here are 10 free tools that can help.

While many customers look at your website for key information (location, hours, how to contact you), there are other people who would like to know a little more about WHO you are and WHAT you stand for. If you can engage them in one of the following ways, you might stand a better chance of making a sale.

HumorA little can go a long way – and it is best to underuse this than overuse it. Lean towards the light humor, especially if it reveals something about your approach to life or your personality. A good example of that can be found on the home page of Higinbotham’s Bed and Breakfast http://www.higinbothams.com/. The first page begins by describing owner Mary Jo Higinbotham in the first paragraph and then moves to her husband and their property. It reads, “Jim, her willing but kitchen-averse husband, has renovated the house over a 3-year period with the help from a variety of experts.” The sentence is designed to give many married couples a chuckle of recognition of the sorts of divisions of duties that are shared in a marriage. She loves the kitchen, he hates it. He handled the renovations but recognized his limitations and relied on the experts.

AccessibilityIn your contact information, it is important to give as much information as possible. Directions to your location are wonderful – as is a link to a mapping site like Google maps. If you can take phone calls on either a landline or a cell phone, and are willing to give both numbers, just seeing them both on the website can let a customer know that you really care about hearing from them. If you are often with clients or otherwise unavailable, a promise to return phone calls within 24 hours can place you head and shoulders above the rest. Just BE CAREFUL to only make that pledge if you can meet it. A broken promise is worse than no promise.

Photographic Images/VideosThese can do so much. Once a customer sees the landscapes at Beech Springs Farm http://www.beechspringsfarm.com, they want to jump in the car and go visit. But the note that the farm is only open to public by appointment tells the customer that yes, they would love to see you, but yes they do have too much work to stop and visit with drive-by visitors. Images can also subtly convey messages. On the McIlhenny Banner website, for instance, http://www.mcilhennybanners.com, the first image shows President Obama standing in front of a banner at Arizona State University. It shows that the work done by the Gettysburg company gets to be associated with some important people and important places.

One of the best ways to harness Twitter is by participating in chats, scheduled hashtag discussions that focus on specific topics. Small businesses can utilize chats to develop a social media plan, discuss brand strategy, and take advantage of free legal advice.

Here is a list of chats for small businesses. To join the conversation, search the hashtag at Twitter during the chat’s scheduled time. You can also use a Twitter-client such as TweetChat orTweetDeck.

#bizforum. Each Wednesday #bizforum provides a place where people with varying points of view on trending business-related topics can present those views and debate the pros and cons with other business leaders. Time: Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#Blogchat. Founded by @MackCollier, #Blogchat is a weekly discussion to help you improve your blogging results. Co-hosts frequently join the conversation. The popular chat also streams at live events. Time: Sundays at 8 p.m. Central U.S. Time.

#CXO.#CXO is a weekly discussion on customer experience optimization for professionals and enthusiasts. Time: Mondays at 12 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#DIYchat. The #DIYchat is a discussion for those with do-it-yourself businesses. Entrepreneurs and creative visionaries have no shortage of ideas, but they often need help creating a master plan for accomplishing their biggest goals. Time: First Thursday of the month, 7 to 9 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#HBRchat. Hosted by Harvard Business Review, #HBRchat presents three questions related to a topic raised in a recent article, blog post or other type of content. HBRchat participants are invited to share their thoughts, ideas and opinions. Time: Thursdays at 1:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#InfluenceChat. Hosted by Alan Berkson, #InfluenceChat discusses influence and related issues. The InfluenceChat blog posts a variety of related articles, as well as chat tweets and topics. Time: Tuesdays at 12 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#KloutChat.Klout, the company that measures your influence, now hosts #KloutChat. The chat is an ongoing conversation about influence measurement and social impact. Time: First Wednesday of every month at 6 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#Legaltweetmeet. If you are a small business owner, chances are you have legal questions.#Legaltweetmeet is a chat that allows business owners and the general public to take advantage of free business and legal advice from Kendrick Law Practice LLC. Time: Thursdays at 8 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#LinkedInChat. Every Tuesday night, #LinkedInChat explores way to utilize and leverage yourLinkedIn business network. The chat sessions are for all types of LinkedIn users, from brand developers to business lead hunters. Time: Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#MMchat. Hosted by @JeffAshcroft, Marketer Monday chat, #MMchat, features a special guest expert every week, as it explores marketing and social media marketing. Time: Mondays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#nfiblive. Hosted by @NFIB, an association of small businesses, #nfiblive is a webinar on small business topics, from legal and tax advice to operations information, to help you run your business better. Time: Second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 12:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#ProdChat. Productivity Chat, #ProdChat, is an hour-long discussion for productivity enthusiasts and those looking to improve their personal productivity, share, and connect with one another.Time: Second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 1:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#SmallBizChat. The focus of #SmallBizChat is to end small business failure by helping business owners succeed as they start and grow their small businesses. It focuses on emerging entrepreneurs who are less than five years in business. Time: Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#smbiz. Each Tuesday night #smbiz is an open chat where small businesses get answers from expert panel members and other small business owners. Meet virtually and help each other out with issues you face on a daily basis. Time: Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#SMChat. Wednesday afternoons, #SMCHAT explores topics on the evolution of social media. Show up with your ideas, and jump into the question-and-answer session. Users can also suggest weekly chat topics on the chat’s blog. Time: Wednesdays at 1 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#SMManners. Social Media Manners chat is a weekly conversation to bring back civility and charm to online communications. #SMManners will help you learn social media etiquette, so that you may develop sustainable relationships and lasting brand presence. Time: Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#SocialChat. Every Monday night, #SocialChat discusses a variety of topics surrounding social media marketing. A featured guest is in the hot seat. You ask the questions and contribute to the conversation. Time: Mondays at 9:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

#SocialMedia. Every Tuesday #SocialMedia discusses the business of social media, with industry leaders moderating weekly topics. Time: Tuesdays at 12 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time.